No one said openin' a brewery was gonna be easy. But here in Sawdust City, we don't much care for easy. We've spent 18 months patiently perfecting our brews and honing our skills and now we feel it's time to bring our beer home and finally give Sawdust City the brewery it so richly deserves.
So keep an eye on this here blog over the up coming months, cause things are moving fast and the dust is really starting to fly!

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Monday, 25 July 2011

A Little History...

And so it begins, the life of the Sawdust City Brewing Co. Well, truthfully the first inklings of our little brewery began many moons ago as mere twinkles in the eye of Rob Engman and yer Humble Host Sam Corbeil; the two brains behind the Sawdust City Brewing Co. For years we'd both had aspirations of opening a brewery in Ontario, but it wasn't til a fateful day just over a year ago at the Sunnyside Pavillion in Toronto during the first annual Session craft beer festival that we first met and discussed our brewing ambitions.
While enjoying the festival and some of this countries finest craft brewed beers, we bumped into each other and struck up a conversation. I had been a contributing writer for TAPS magazine, which Rob was the publisher of, for a few years and I wanted to thank him for giving me the opportunity. Although Rob was the publisher, I still hadn't had the opportunity to meet him. He graciously accepted, we shook hands and decided to grab another beer. Well, you know how it goes, one led to four and the next thing you know we're telling each other about our "pie in the sky" dreams of opening up a brewery in that far off Never, Neverland of "someday".
We'd had a couple more when we figured it best to call it a day and reconvene at a different time and place. So we set a date to meet at Rob's house up in Gravenhurst, Ontario, shook hands and parted for the day.
A few weeks later, I drove up to Gravenhurst and met Rob at his house. We sat down in his garage, poured a few pints (you're probably sensing a theme here?) and began to discuss our thoughts on how this proposed brewery should look and feel. Turns out we our ideas were eerily similar. We shared the same taste in beer styles, we both felt that the brewery should include a pub or a restaurant and we both wanted it to be in Muskoka. Rob, having lived in Gravenhurst for a number of years had really come to love the area. Myself, I had grown up in Muskoka and relished the opportunity to come home and open a brewery. We sat in his garage, talked for a few more hours and hashed out the first imaginings of our brewery to be.
Over the next year, we began to pare down our ideas and to carve out the business plan into what it is today. It took a lot of doing and a lot of beer, but it's finally in a place that we are both very happy with.So now that we finally have a property on the Muskoka Wharf, right in the heart of Gravenhurst, where we are going to house the Sawdust City Brewing Co, we can finally see our dreams becoming reality. We're both very excited about Sawdust City and what it's become and we want to share that excitement with you. So over the coming weeks and months, we want you to join us on our journey as we begin to build the Sawdust City Brewing Co.
I'll be updating this blog regularly, keeping everyone informed of the goings on down at the wharf, filling you in on what's new with the brewery and generally just letting you know how it's coming along. So be sure to check back frequently and see what's new down at the Sawdust City Brewing Co.
Anyhoo, that's about it for now. Until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust beneath your feet.